Golf is my game. I started playing when I was 9 years old by tagging along while my dad played. I was lucky enough that there was a local junior association and got involved with that at 10. The middle school I attended started a team during my 7th grade year as I had some friends that were all pretty good as well. I wasn't the greatest but played everyday during the summer and by my junior year in high school, I was the #1 man on varsity. I started getting interest from some college teams and ended up attending a small NAIA (comparable to DII) school on a golf scholarship. I was team captain my senior year and I was a part of a couple of school records. My career low round is 65 and I currently have a handicap of 1. If I shoot over 75, I'm not happy. I still play in USGA qualifiers and state tournaments. Never once did I take a lesson from a professional. I learned by playing and practicing on my own everyday when I was younger. Flash forward to now and I recently just completed my first year as volunteer golf coach of the middle school team that I used to play for. The high school coach plans on retiring this year so it's looking good that I'll actually get paid for driving kids to courses and watching them play.
As a 6'7" 235 pound lanky bastard, most people expect me to be good at basketball, but I suck terribly. I can jump, but jesus I cannot shoot to save myself. The sport I've always excelled at however, was soccer, specifically keeper. I played from peewee all the way up to college and regularly posted full seasons without giving up more than 10 goals. I haven't played since a co-rec league in college, but last week, at the ripe old age of 29 I was asked to play for a friends competitive adult league team. After two weeks and 4 wins in 4 games, I've seen 26 shots and saved 24. My team assumed I was just the big goofy fucker that they could stick in goal, how wrong they were. I'm happy playing sports without the promise of drinking afterwards for the first time since freshman year of college. Damn it feels good.
I'm good at soccer. Really good. This is fairly surprising since I didn't start playing goalkeeper until I was a senior in high school and only had one scholarship offer coming out of high school to a small junior college that sucked. We went from 3-15 my freshman year to 13-4-1 my sophomore year. I ended up transferring in the spring to a top 10 DII school, and my first game was against the local professional team and I had an absolute blinder of a game. We ended up losing 2-0, but I had somewhere around 15 saves. The following fall, I ended up winning the starting goalkeeping job from a kid who's played in World Cup qualifying matches. I ended up getting first team all conference twice, all-region, and was an All-American honorable mention my senior year. But a very untimely injury ruined my chance of getting a professional contract back then, but after playing the equivalent of A baseball this past summer and playing well after taking two years off from the sport, I'm heading to a few tryouts this winter and spring.
First off, I thought chater was lying until he said "Provence" and realized that there were no black guys on that track. Focus: I was a high school wrestler, quarterback of the football team, and played on the basketball team as well. I moved a lot growing up, but ended up going to high school at the same school for 4 straight years. I wrestled my freshman and sophomore year and won every match. Often, my friend would make bets on my performance without my knowledge. The number 2 Guy in the state was from our rival school, and that led to some tussles. Things got a little more competetive in my senior year when we added a girl to the team. Nothing exciting ever happened during my football playing days except That I got into a car accident the night before our homecoming game (I was so fucked up). I think I only played a game or two on the basketball team, but it was the finals. My buddy broke his ankle and had to go to the doctor. Anyways, I got a full ride scholarship to Iowa to wrestle, but ended up going to some California school with my buddies and one of their exes.
Hold on, you had a full ride scholarship to one of the most successful athletic programs of all time, regardless of sport, and you turned it down? Thats like turning down a basketball scholarship to UNC, except UNC won 3 times as much, to go hang out with friends...